welcome to the heretics club: my life in 3 paragraphs

~ sent in response to a lovely chap I did actually meet: for a mutual chemistry test failure ~

Oh my! 3 paragraphs.
What shall I say?
Oops! all gone.
Do you find that other people always seem to have/had more interesting lives and interests than yours? I doubt it after reading your career history: leaves me feeling gloomily lightweight. I did all the high-achieving stuff at school, went to uni and then discovered life which meant I failed all my second year exams and then ran off to get married instead of doing resits. Bad idea. Never did manage to get back and finish it as London wanted to take my parents AND husbands income into account which meant I couldn't get a grant. Also couldn't get a job as I was "too clever" and "would be bored". *sigh* I'll bore you with the intermediate detail sometime but eventually I did a TOPS course and got into IT as a programmer, finally reaching terminal boredom as a senior test manager. Most of it is money for old rope as I enjoy it, but I am useless at office politics and find that infinitely frustrating.

Reading is akin to breathing in my life: escapism and information gathering, and I mostly don't even realise I'm reading anything. Kafka! Oh yes. Books with a twist to make you think, books which investigate different ways of being, books which create different universes, books which explore and expand on faerie, mysticism, psychology. I do own a TV but am never quite sure how it works. It gets switched on when my mother visits and sometimes when my grandson is here, otherwise I only ever see programs if someone phones me to say "you need to watch this" or at other peoples houses. An ex defined the difference for me once, I watch programs, most people watch "TV". Music TV however, that's different. I love some of the imagery in music videos, and there are some tracks that I can't talk through cos I have to *listen* Noise like (Klemperer) Mahlers Resurrection, Pink Floyd, James Dean Bradfield, Bowie, Stevie Nicks, Annie Lennox. I have a 120GB drive full of music. An unbelievable amount of Tangerine Dream. What else for entertainment. Lots. I try things, get interested and sometimes obsessive about them, and eventually move on to something else. Generally without giving up the first thing. Makes for a cluttered but interesting life.

Occult stuff. That's really hard to answer. I don't remember a time I wasn't interested. I put my 3ft pile of astrology books into storage when I found the internet does it faster and more accurately. I have friends who are psychics, spiritualists and witches but, personally, tend to work from a base of open-minded scepticism. People seem to be either entirely too credulous about it, too mercenary or too unwilling to believe there can be anything in it at all. My monologue on astrology starts by obtaining agreement that the moon affects tides and defines influence on the basis that the human body is 70% water and it's ludicrous to suggest planets have no influence.I have monologues and theories on many subjects : always happy to learn more.

I notice we both 'talk' a lot. Lovely. Money's worth : PAH! I enjoy the things money can buy, and am fortunate enough to have an income sufficient to cover my excesses. Equally, I always aspired to be an eccentric and am reliably informed that I have achieved that ambition